The silent revolution. The emergence of commons, guilds and other forms of corporate collective action in Western Europe from a new perspective

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1 1 The silent revolution. The emergence of commons, guilds and other forms of corporate collective action in Western Europe from a new perspective Tine De Moor (UU) 1 A silent revolution? During the Late Middle ages, Europeans formed to a previously unknown intensity and extent "alliances" that were not (primarily) based on kinship, but on other common characteristics such as occupation. In the urban context, organisations such as guilds and fraternities can serve as examples. For the countryside, this is the period that communal land tenure arrangements, or simply "commons", were increasingly formed and institutionalised. It is not so much the actual formation of such types of collective action that is striking, nor their institutional characteristics that make this region in this period so exceptional. Elsewhere and in other times (e.g. Roman times), craftsmen and merchants also formed guilds. It was however the high intensity of new units of such collective action that were being formed that makes this movement striking enough to refer to it as a silent revolution. A revolution, as this was a movement that started from below and because it may have been as important in the long-term- for the course of European history as any other revolution. Silent, as this movement was primarily based on at first tacit and later explicit written- agreements between powerful rulers and demanding subjects, villagers and townsmen alike. Mostly these agreements were formed on a peaceful basis. The silent progress and development of the here described form of collective action has consequently made it for a long time an unnoticed revolution too. Most attention in historiographical collective action research has been going to the short-lived demands for change in the form of riots, protest demonstrations and the like as motors for democratisation and political change. Equally or even more- important are those movements that resulted in institutions that tried to solve certain social problems, though in a more durable way. They offered a framework that made those riots and revolts more effective in their strive for political change.

2 2 It would be quite exaggerated to claim the discovery of this revolution. Several authors have pointed to similar trends, either on the countryside (e.g. Blickle s Kommunalismus) either in the cities (e.g. Greif in his latest book 2 ) but what they have missed is the co-evolution of all these trends. So far these trends have been considered in a fragmentary way, and have not sufficiently been seen in coherence. Although in literature both guilds of merchants and craftsmen- and commons have already been identified as institutions that function according to the "law" of collective action, this was always done separately, without linking their simultaneous emergence, their parallel development, their similarities in structure, functioning, rise and decline. 3 Moreover, the implications of the development of such collective action and this is what makes it important to study - have often been ignored. The striking geographical and simultaneous concentration of both the rural and urban form of collective action in Europe suggests a relationship with the industrial leap forward Western Europe made during the 18 th and 19 th centuries. If we take into consideration that some factors, like the absence of strong family ties, might have been important for the development of collective action and the development of the labour market (which was in turn a necessary prerequisite for the Industrial Revolution), we are then not far from linking collective action to economic development. In the past, guild-researchers have often been trying to estimate the direct economic impact of guilds and commons. Consequently, those forms of collective action have often been considered as inefficient and counter-productive for economic development. After all, guilds and commons- designed and implemented rules (such as minimum quality) that might have restricted rather than stimulated economic growth. This view has altered lately, mainly due to the greater stress that is being laid on the importance of institutions for economic development, as for example formulated by Greif: Although the late medieval European institutions differ in forms from later ones, many of the elements and features of modern, welfare-enhancing Western style institutions were already present or in the process of emerging during the late medieval period: individualism, man-made formal law, corporatism, self-governance, and rules reflecting an institutionalised process in which these who were subject to them had a voice and influence. To the extent that the Rise of the West is due to its underpinning institutions, the roots of this rise may have begun to take hold as early as the late medieval period. 4 In this paper, I elaborate on this argument; by analysing guilds and commons it becomes clear which particular kind or problems created by the developing free market these institutions tried to solve. By comparing their solutions, it becomes clear that at the basis of this form of collective action lays a problem that has a very similar structure, and that is caused by similar developments in for example family formation.

3 3 Guilds and commons are for this paper the most suitable examples of this silent revolution as they offer the possibility to point out the geographical presence (in Western Europe) and universality from town to countryside- of the collective action processes during the period as described. Other forms of collective action that are part of the silent revolution and that could be included in the study at a later stage are for example the fraternities, or brotherhoods with a mainly religious cause, or the beguinages, where women choose live together independently in a religious way, without belonging to a religious order or convent. 5 Commons can be considered as institutions for the collective use and management of land and its resources. Although the history and typology of commons (and naming) is quite different on the continent, the English term has become widely used to indicate for example the German Genossenschaften or the Dutch Meenten and Markegenootschappen. Overall one can distinguish four types of commons. The first type comprises land that is only temporarily open to a group of people usually the members of the local community- and this after harvest of the crop, thus for the remaining grain to reap, or for the cattle to pasture on the stubbles left behind. These are generally indicated with the term common arable. The other three types relate to land that is open to a group of entitled users and this can be a group defined differently from the community- throughout the whole year, except for indicated periods that should allow the commons resources to regenerate. These commons can be divided into common woodland, common pasture and common waste, the last being usually rather poor land, and open for pasture and other activities during most of the year. Rights were assigned to groups, in some cases comprising the whole local village and sometimes even more than one village and in other cases limited to only those who met certain qualifications (membership of other commoners, payment of a certain fee, etc.). 6 I would like to define craft guilds here following Lourens and Lucassen- as organisations that with the agreement of the local authority- unite members of the same occupational group, with as their most important goal the furthering of their economic interests, but not without taking into account the general well-being of their group as well. 7 Due to a lack of sources it is often impossible to find out whether the Late Medieval guilds would have corresponded entirely to this definition right from their foundation. Some guilds were not recognised right away at their foundation- by local authorities, simply because these authorities had not really been defined themselves as yet. Guilds were mainly urban institutions, but in some cases the densely populated setting wherein they developed had not yet been attributed with the legal predicate of city ; the number of rural guilds is rather small, just as in a similar sense the number of commons a primarily rural phenomenon- in the cities was very small too (although

4 4 many medieval towns did have their common pastures and fields for e.g. bleaching linnen). This paper starts off by identifying the peculiarity of this movement of collective action and its distinctive characteristics. In order to support the arguments made in this paper with sufficient evidence, abstraction had to be made of the many differences that these institutions show. The institutions of the kind discussed here often have a longstanding history and are therefore not only complex but have also developed many different varieties of their Ur-type. A description of the characteristics of the silent revolution does however not yet explain why it happened, and why it didn't or at least not to such an extent- take place elsewhere, for example in Asia. The second part of this paper gives reasons for collective action and distinguishes the conditions and motors that might have played a role in the historical development of these forms of corporate collective action. Analysing and comparing the problems that collective action tried to solve, requires sufficient abstraction of the structure of such a problem. A concept that helps in achieving this is the "social dilemma": not only does it capture well the issues at stake in social problems with conflicting interests between individuals and society, research has in the meanwhile also revealed which qualities collective actors should adhere to in order to solve the problems effectively and efficiently. Most of this article focuses on the Low Countries as a case study, although much of the characteristics of the silent revolution can be applied to other countries in Western Europe as well. It remains uncertain where exactly the movement described here begun but this region, together with England, proves to have been particulary fertile soil. 8 In order to make this picture clear, contrasting evidence will be offered in the last part, as a jump-start for further comparative research. As will be made clear, Asia, and in particular China, is for this cause a very interesting case. Corporate collective action as a distinctive form of collective action Collective action under consideration in historical literature mostly focuses on short, often sudden rises of collective discontent mostly in the form of mass movements (e.g. riots, protest demonstrations). The forms of collective action which were the most prominently present in the revolution as referred to in this paper, are however of a more long-lasting type. It is however not unusual that the members of those organisations were involved in protest movements (the other type of collective action ), as for example in the famous Flemish Battle of Spurs (1302) wherein the weavers guilds of the Flemish towns played a prominent role. Though they were composed of more than only guilds-members, many

5 5 revolts in cities (e.g. the Bürgerkämpfe) during the 14 th and 15 th centuries, have led to the establishment of their formal representation in city councils, albeit not everywhere as effectively. 9 In a similar fashion many commoners 10 were actively involved in protests and riots against enclosures, in England, France and elsewhere. 11 In short: one form of collective action often goes with the other. For a long time, historical collective action has been interpreted in its more shortterm form as studied by for example Charles & Louise Tilly, Sidney Tarrow and Douglas McAdam, who considered collective action mainly as large-scale mass movements that often can only make their point via riots and demonstrations. Charles Tilly justifies the use of the use of the term "collective action" (over e.g. the term rebellion) by pointing to the many methods of action that were used by groups besides rioting or demonstrating to make their point and change their living circumstances. For Tilly therefore collective action "consists of all occasions on which sets of people commit pooled resources, including their own efforts, to common efforts". 12 Though this definition is broad enough to also cover the type of collective action that is dealt with in this paper, Tilly does not include any reference to guilds, commons or any other example in his description of the repertoires of collective action. 13 Over the past few years the debate on this Tilly s kind of collective action has merged into the "contentious politics" debate, thus moving even further away from the more silent version of collective action. "Corporate collective action" is considered as the best description for the exclusive, self-enforced autonomous institutions that formed the core of the silent revolution and that are the subject of this paper, because of the stress these groups of people put on their unity, on the fact that belonging to a particular group created particular rights. The principle of "Universitas" that made it possible for groups in medieval Europe to act as a legal person, will be explained later in this paper. Another element that made corporate collective action markedly distinct from collective action in general is its degree of institutionalisation. The group formation process was accompanied by the design of a set of rules, that was usually written down and revised regularly in order to make collective action work. After all, it is not because people decided to act together, that they would also keep doing so thereafter. They might become free-riders and thus undermine the initial good intentions of the collective actors. It may be assumed that those actors were not complete strangers to them but since these institutions had new members continuously and because kin-relations (which naturally inhibit trust) were not the prime requirement for membership, it is not surprising that rules were absolutely necessary to keep free-riders from getting into action. Although free-riders might be fined and these fines might feed the budget of the institution, it is still a costly affair to spot defectors

6 6 and obtain the fines (sometimes court cases are required). Part of the monitoring can be achieved via social control, but to make social control effective investment is also required: regular meetings are necessary to keep members up-to-date on new me mbers and to announce which people might have defected, and to announce new rules so that defection can actually be identified as such. In short: a solid institutional design is necessary to turn the collective actors into cooperative actors. This degree of institutionalisation is a clear difference with the more short-term collective action. Revolts are mostly a response to an immediate provocation, though the underlying causes may have been long build-up grudges. 14 Riots and revolts are supposed to give immediate relief, whereas corporate collective action sets up institutions for particular goals which are not primarily aiming at immediate relief but rather constant relief (see also the point on longevity). Moreover, the participants of that short term collective action aim at change, but do not necessarily see an active role for themselves in achieving that change, not in the short nor the long term, except for those who cherish the ambition of a leaders role maybe. Linked to this characteristic are the fact that riots, etc. aimed at forming large groups (the more the merrier and convincing) and that these groups were essentially formed of anonymous individuals. Distinctive features of the silent revolution A. Institutional design: self-enforced, exclusive and autonomous corporations Exclusiveness The individuals taking part could not remain anonymous, in most cases they even had to swear an oath before they can become a member, which makes them visible and identifiable for the rest of the group. As much as these may also have had a deep and long-lasting effect on society, the anonymous crowds that figured in riots have entirely different objectives and apply other methods than the organised individuals that formed guilds or commons. It is known from sociological research that the degree to which participants to collective action know each other influences the potential success (in terms of reciprocity) of that group. 15 The practice of swearing an oath when becoming a member of a guild, makes then a fundamental difference with revolts and riots where the

7 7 group was often very diverse and anonymous. Their willingness to cooperate in the future, lies in the potential benefits participants may obtain and the security this gives. This willingness has been at the centre of sociological/behavioural research on collective action (Olson, Ostrom etc). 16 Cooperative behaviour within the group and respect for the resources of the group was expected from the contemporary members of the group. In several charters it could be found that the members would be working for the well-being of the institution, thus implicitly ascertaining the importance of sustainable management of their resources. Keeping in mind Mancur Olson s quote rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interest, the ambitions of our medieval ancestors sound highly unrealistic. 17 Their method to achieve this was forming institutions for exclusive groups: institutionalisation secures the continuity, exclusion secures feasibility by only allowing those with an at least minimal interest in keeping the institution going. Whereas sudden, short-lived collective action benefits from attracting as much participants as possible, sustained collective action tries to limit the number of participants. The institutions that were part of the silent revolution, were exclusive and this exclusion was self-enforced. The members limited the number of people that could become members by setting clear access rules. Both guilds and commons wanted to differentiate insiders from outsiders, set boundaries to the resources and the group, via a set of rules that could according to the needs of the moment- be expanded or reduced. As a group, they decided upon the rules that were needed to exclude others from participating. Rules could include limitations of the access to the group by means of several requirements (e.g. financial requirements or a "waiting period" like in the case of apprenticeships), a set maximum of production to restrict overproduction, specifications to guard the local market against competition of others (farmers in case of commoners, members from other guilds or non-guild-artisans in the case of the guilds). However, to a certain degree these organisations did honour requests of non-eligible persons, under certain conditions. Guilds were closed organisations but were also to a certain degree open for non-members, as they sometimes also retrieved income from non-members. Those living outside of the city but of the same profession could practice their profession temporarily in the city, but were obliged to pay redemption money to the guild. 18 The same for commons: in times when the members themselves could not provide sufficient livestock to graze the commons, non-members were allowed. Their exclusiveness was thus rather flexible. This can easily be explained: letting foreign merchants (guilds) noncommoners for a short while take advantage of the benefits that were offered in return for payment did not mean they could also make use of the other facilities (social welfare etc). In principle these temporarily guest would thus hardly cost money, on the contrary.

8 8 Although they are in most literature considered as primarily economic associations that regulated access by means of occupational group, guilds could also take other forms, and thus use other access rules. In the so-called pre-corporative period guilds were primarily religious groupings, fraternities. Later, with the parallel development of cities, the access rules became intertwined with citizenship. In the Low Countries for example, one had to be a poorter, which meant the possession of full citizenship rights, and these could be obtained via certain rules. If one did not have these rights via the natural way, as the son of a father with rights, it was most advantageous to marry the daughter of a poorter, which was considering the surplus of women in the Dutch cities, not a very hard task indeed. In comparison to other countries, the third option, namely buying your city rights, was relatively cheap. 19 Other factors, such as the comparatively short period of apprenticeship, indicate that guilds in the Dutch Republic were more inclusive and open than elsewhere. But, they did not forsake to limit entry to their guilds. Membership was to a certain extent dependent on family relations: sons of masters paid often only half in comparison to external candidates, and women only very occasionally could obtain the right to become a master. In cases they did become members, their rights (e.g. to vote) were restricted. If strangers managed to marry a master s daughter or collect the necessary budget, they still needed to work several years with a master before actually being allowed to become a member. This requirement was not set right from the foundation of the guilds, in most cases it was only introduced later, from e.g. the 17 th century onwards. 20 Those taking part in the collective action clearly wanted their organisation to last for several generations of members, not just for themselves. The guild members and peasants created an institution for several generations, not only for their own generation, as becomes clear on the basis of documents that provided the rules to arrange succession within the common. In some cases, these rules include an "inheritanceclause": guilds where members/masters needed to inherit the right from their fathers, commons where the right to use the land could only be inherited from family members. There could be several reasons why such institutions were set up "for eternity": the costs, in terms of coming to an agreement with the local ruler, were relatively high; if one had obtained the right "to belong" one would not easily let go of it; and participants may have realised that it would take time before they would really benefit from the institution. Self-enforced The corporations were (mostly) self-enforced. Instead of relying on external bodies to give relief, they became a sort of self-help groups: they formed rather autonomous, self-

9 9 governed interest groups with often good relations with local authorities. The fact that people formed groups is in itself not striking, but that they actually regulated and controlled the execution of these rules (including punishment) themselves, is a less obvious practice. In order to make their collective project work, guilds and commons both relied heavily on group norms, as opposed to formal legal enactments, as enforcement mechanisms. They designed most of the rules themselves, with or without the involvement of the local powers. This should not surprise: involvement in the design of the rules has proven to offer a better guarantee on success (Jager). They supplemented these rules with impressive sets of "instruments" to make their alliance work. I will not give details of e.g. fining systems but I do want to point out two striking elements. The members of these corporate institutions both guilds and commonsdeveloped methods to protect their organisation from the functioning of the free market. They tried to safeguard at least part of the production market against the forces of the free market. It is often assumed that they tried to achieve a complete monopoly. But in practice it did not necessarily turn out as such. Notwithstanding the strict regulation in writing, in practice there were many and often rather radical exceptions to the guilds regulation that prevented any form of monopoly to be established. 21 "A world within a world" With a large set of rules the commoners and guild members tried to regulate the behaviour of fellow members to prevent them from freeriding- and the effect their surroundings could have on the behaviour of the members. They developed a system of market-regulation, in order to protect their own "little world". In both cases, guilds and commons, measures were taken to achieve a reasonable income for the members, to eliminate the disruptive effects of the market. At the time when commons and guilds were set up, the European market economy was still in an early stage of development. Because of the market economy's instability, institutions such as the guilds were set up to make functioning within those settings less risky, though without loosing too much of the advantages the market offered. Prudence above all, one could say. With Prak and Panhuysen we can say that the fact that the guilds' domination of the markets was incomplete, does not necessarily point towards an inefficient monopoly. They might not even have planned to go for the complete monopoly in their trade in the first place. 22 As described by Panhuysen, guilds set up a number of strategies to deal with these problems. These strategies were designed to give the master tailors control over the most profitable parts of the trade, while they were willing to compromise in what was seen as the peripheral activities. One of the methods of the guilds in their attempts to master product markets was by forming cartels. The number of conflicts

10 10 about the right to form cartels demonstrates the importance of this for the guilds until the eve of their abolishment. The information about this and the effects it had is limited, but there are indications that the guilds managed to protect the market though not completely but substantially nevertheless. 23 The question here is whether it was necessary for the guilds to master the markets completely. Would it have been an objective of a small-scale organisation that aimed primarily at securing the income of its members who had particular skills and due to their human capital- discerned themselves from the lesser trained "mob" that worked at the countryside? Is their much advantage to begotten from a putting-out system when one does not have the capital to invest in such a system? It seems like it that the guild-system, and the system of common land, both offered their members the advantages of scale via cooperation- (see also further). The peasants also tried to limit the influence of the market on their common and its members. The background hereof is the wish to prevent the overexploitation of their common, although it is commonly supposed primarily by non-historians such as Hardin cum suis 24 - that commons were traditionally always overgrazed. Regulation of the use of the common and rules to prevent or at least restrict the commercialisation of the commons' goods was devised. Overall there were two methods to regulate the use of the resources: by setting stints, or numerical limits to the amount of resource units per person, and by implementing a price mechanism that adjusted the prices to the foreseeable pressure on the commons (payment per head of cattle). Depending on the type of resource involved, different types of rules limiting the influence of the market could be found on the European historical commons. In general the amount of produce a commoner was allowed to take was limited to a certain number of resource units. In some cases the surface of the common was expressed in terms of the number of units of cattle the common could feed. In for example the Wijkerzand common in the central Netherlands, the number of 180 shares and their size in the grazing rights of the common, appear to have been laid down in the fifteenth century and survived until today. 25 Often, the limitation of the shares of the commoners was not limited to the capacities of the common but to the factors that were directly related to aspects of the subsistence economy and thus not to the commercial economy- of the commoners. One of such rules was the express prohibition on the selling of produce from the common (wood, or milk from the commons' cows) outside the village borders. This helped them in protecting the most valuable assets of their common against the free market, and its possible negative side-effects (in the case of the common: commercialisation and overexploitation). Protection of the members against the free market, is in no sense

11 11 however the same as being against the free market. Besides their activities on the commons, the commoners could have participated in the free market. Furthermore commons also developed mechanisms to offer resources at a uniform price, meant to led to more equality within the organisation. 26 In the case of the commons, the prices of the resources that could be harvested were uniform and equal for all members. Prices could however be higher for non-members, in case that was allowed. 27 Moreover, this does not mean that prices for products were stable; they were adjusted not to the prices of the market- but to the situation of the common. Evidence can be found of commons that used an "internal market" to regulate the use of their resources: when demand for the resources (by members) was high and threatened to become too high in comparison with what was available on the common, the prices per individual piece of cattle were raised, leading to a reduction in the demand for cattle on the common. 28 The functioning of the guilds can be compared to this. The members of the guilds aimed at putting their products on the markets with uniform prices, thus also promoting though not necessarily achieving- a maximal average income among the members. Prak however notes that the great social differences between members of the guilds indicates that there must have been other factors at work that turned that optimal average into a minimum-wage. 29 The guilds did not use nor did the commons- the laws of supply and demand to set and change their prices; they used an internal autonomously definedquality standard. 30 Products of the same quality were to be sold for the same uniform price. By offering products of the same quality they created a medieval form of quality label. This did not only make trade easier, but it also prevented internal conflicts to arise. Gustaffson considers quality control as a key organizing principle of medieval guilds. The variability of quality as conditioned largely by the individual craftsman s skill would be changed only with the industrial revolution when the quality of products was to be determined by machines and hence given a more uniform and homogenous character. 31 In the meanwhile guilds were necessary to solve the "quality problem" for the traders in the emerging market economy. Gustaffson sums up several methods the guilds used to control quality: scrutiny of raw materials, scrutiny and regulation of production processes, setting standard and compliance inspections for end products, hereby using marks to indicate a specific quality. One can assume that by controlling the quality themselves, the guilds achieved a competitive advantage over the free-market produce: traders no longer had to control the merchandise intensively themselves, as this was already done by the guilds. Aiming at offering products produced by the guilds at uniform prices had a similar effect as on the common: those who complied with the rules of the guilds, were assured

12 12 of an income. This was probably not the best possible price they would have received on the free market, but it did assure them of income continuity. Those who decided to ignore the quality standard and to make goods of a lesser quality and offered these at a lower price to the consumer threatened the income of all the suppliers of quality goods. This straightforward social dilemma problem was solved by a multitude of rules and sanctions, to prevent free-riding by the members. Richardson describes how the members of the guilds were dependent upon each other to achieve that required income level: they had a common theme. Guild members acted to increase their incomes, and their efforts required action in concert. Members had to cooperate. Each had to do his part for the guild to attain his goals. 32 Ignoring the quality standards of the guild can be considered as a user-strategy equal to overusing the resources of the common, either for personal or for commercial use. In both cases members abused the fact that they belonged to a privileged group. Commoners could try to put more cattle on the common, thus abusing their legitimate presence on the common. Whether or not their abuse would be discovered, depended on the functioning of the commoners' (social) control mechanisms. Guild members could abuse their reputation as a respected guild member to offer products of a lower quality to the market, under the prejudice of being of guild-quality. Records exist of manufacturers guild-members- who preferred a low quality product strategy, which conflicted with the guilds' general strategy. 33 Durability was important in the manufacturing sector because products often needed to be sold over long distances. If the product proved to be of lower quality this could wreck the reputation of the guild. 34 In order to avoid prevent members from free-riding social control played an important role in these institutions. We find evidence that members of commons would be fined if they did not report it when they saw others cheat. Guilds often required members to set up shop in the same area in order to encourage the social control among each other. 35 The so-called gradual sanctioning Ostrom mentions in her list of design principles is found in both institutions methods of fining free-riders. 36 In both guilds and commons the punishment could amount to permanent expulsion from the organisation. 37 Guilds used however also other methods to prevent free-riding. Richardson explains that craft guilds combined spiritual and occupational endeavours because the former facilitated the success of the later and vice versa. The reciprocal nature of this relationship linked the ability of guilds to attain spiritual and occupational goals. By combining piety and profit the guilds could overcome free-rider problems and achieve common goals. 38 This kind of bundling of endeavours increased the pain of expulsion. People expelled from guilds with both craft and Christian features lost both business and religious benefits. They lost not only their colleagues but also their church, not only their

13 13 partners but also their preachers, not only their means of prospering in this life but also their hope of passing through purgatory. The advantage of combining religious and economic goals lay according to Richardson- in the fact that the religious consequences of defection could not be easily calculated as they might have become obvious only in the afterlife. The religious goals of the guild added an extra enforcement tool. Although he gives no evidence for this, Richardson concludes that complex guilds those that combined endeavours- deterred shirking better than simple, secular associations and that the complex variants would be more profitable than the simple ones. 39 B. Longevity of corporate collective action institutions A consequence of this legal basis of universitas is the longevity/durability of (many of) the corporations that came into existence. Tierney described this medieval change very well: a corporation did not have to die; it remained the same legal entity even though the persons of the members changed (this contrary to for example family relations that could very well die). 40 Indeed, many of those corporate versions of collective action like guilds and commons lasted literally for ages, and on the basis of the archival documents (e.g. charters that formed the official recognition of their institution/organisation) many indications that they were meant to last for several generations can be found. And many new initiatives followed. To a certain degree path dependency was playing a role here; quite some new initiatives may be considered as copy-cats, its founders being attracted by the success of their colleagues in other towns and regions. C. Exclusion and dissolution processes Both types of organisation also went through similar processes of change and in the end also dissolution. Both guilds and commons went through what can be considered an exclusion process, in particular from the 16th century onwards. New rules were added in order to limit the expansion of the group of members even further, in particular rules related to the access of women to the organisations. 41 This goes for both guilds and commons. Commoners decided to make the conditions of becoming a commoner stricter, which often entailed the exclusion of women. During the 16th century, guilds also took increasingly recourse to excluding women to keep their number of members down. The Amsterdam seamstresses who were originally members of the tailors guild and were as such allowed to sew men s clothing on the conditioning of fulfilling the necessary tests, were from 1578 onwards forbidden to continue that job. From then onwards they could only make women s and children s clothing, and several other rights were abolished.

14 14 Basically, seamstresses could stay members but they had no rights whatsoever within the guild. 42 D. Differences between commons and guilds as examples of corporate collective action Quite a few similarities between guilds and commons have now been identified. One of the differences however remains that the type of work that was executed by the guilds was also done outside of the guilds. Even if we consider that the guilds originated out of an attempt to regulate that labour in order to secure a continuous income for its members, we cannot say that they attempted to prevent at all that other work in their branch that was being done by others. We can say similar things about the commons: Besides the income that was derived from the commons, the commoners were engaged in other jobs whereof they got most of their income. The difference with the guilds is the importance of these organisations for their income: whereas members of the guilds probably derived most of their income from the guilds, the commoners only saw the commons as a side-income (albeit an essential one). The village economy consisted typically out of a combination of individual and collective production: farmers combined the work on their own plots of land, with the work on the common. A striking aspect and difference with commons- of the functioning of the guild system is the interconnectivity of the guilds. An example is the quality control of the guild's produce by separate guilds (waag- en metersgilden). 43 This interconnectivity seems to be something that was typical for larger cities. This should not surprise: the guild system was a system that used the advantages of small-scale production (quality!) in combination with larger-scale organisation (reducing risk etc.). If a function or an aspect of that organisation became a standard part of all or most guilds, it was more interesting to organise it separately. This type of self-control is something that was organised differently in rural areas, at least when were talking about commons. Commons mostly did not have contacts among each other, nor did they depend upon a common institution to organise control. In some cases, the local police did take up part of those control tasks. Another difference is the treatment of immigrants. The right to use the common was often limited to villagers who could prove a residence of at least 3 years, sometimes even longer. Immigrants or even inhabitants from nearby villages were prevented from taking part. Contrary to what has often been claimed by their 18 th century enlightened

15 15 abolishers and later liberal economists, the guilds were not per se against immigrants, though it must be stressed that this was not a European-wide attitude. The guilds of the Dutch Republic were rather inclusive towards immigrants, at least to those of the male and Christian kind. It seems they chose to control rather than to ignore their presence. Their attitude can be derived from the rather low fees that were charged for citizenship and membership of the guilds and from the comparatively short apprenticeship period. 44 This combination of similarities formed, notwithstanding some differences, together the silent revolution. As mentioned beforehand, this trend has already been noted by among others Blickle and Greif, though they have referred to it differently. In Blickles view "Kommunalismus" expresses "the mutual dependency of independent labor organisations of burghers and peasants on the one hand, and communes with state functions on the other (the commune imposed itself as a horizontal principle within the socio-political system from the 13 th century). These two complementary factors challenged and altered the wider political regime by means of representation and resistance, establishing "communalism" as a fundamental organizational principle between medieval and modern times". 45 Blickle considers the introduction of more complex agricultural methods to reach a higher output as the stimulus for collective decision making: "The thirteenth century,.witnessed a remarkable change in agricultural production economic activities underwent considerable change: more and more crops were planted, using a field rotation system, arable land was separated more clearly from pasture, and neighbouring villages defined their respective territories much more explicitly. All this provides clear evidence for a more intensive use of rural resources in the face of rising population.the comparatively complicated new rotation system ruled out individual choices of crops and demanded a process of collective decision-making involving all peasants. To settle the inevitable disputes, some form of local conflict resolution had to be found, while rules and regulations were necessary to keep the peace among neighbours who now lived in much closer proximity. The result was the emergence of village autonomy, village jurisdiction, and village legislation as autogenous rights of the inhabitants." 46 This view is consistent with our view on the origins of commons (that will be explained later in this paper). In a similar fashion, Blickle s reasoning can although the processes he describes are mainly rural- be linked to the origins of the guilds. Blickle sees the fast return to serfdom east of the Elbe and the expansion of the village powers in Western Germany in relation to the degree of strong lordship though this seems to be a circular argument- and to urbanisation density. The overlap between areas with a dense network of villages and highly urbanised regions (as in the west of the Empire) suggests that the cities and villages depended upon each other. This Verdorfungsprocess, the accelerated formation

16 16 of villages, was the motor behind the formation of a new labor organisation and political order. During the transition from an agrarian system based on demesnes where farming was practised by forced labor of serfs according to seigniorial instructions- into a system that involved more independent tenant holdings where tenants worked on the basis of rents (in cash or kind) which required the division of seigniorial land into individual holdings- the disposition of one's labor and produce was freed. Blickle "the medieval turning-point brought a move from serfdom to freedom, from a life determined by others to one determined by oneself". 47 There are however some differences between Blickle s approach and mine. Blickle in fact captures only part of the movement and leaves out other organisations that were taking shape during that period. Blickle hardly ever refers to commons though they were present in the rural environment he focused on- neither to guilds as part of this process. The reasons for leaving them out may be that the region Blickle is putting forward does not witness a similar striking rise in the establishment of guilds and commons (and other forms of collective action as for example beguinages) as in the Low Countries and of course- his greater interest in short-term forms of collective actions such as the peasant revolt of It should also be noted that the process he describes was less idealistic than he makes it sound like. To cite Blickle: "Feudalism kept subjects in a "servile" position, with lords deciding on the tenants' room for economic and political manoeuvre. Communalism, in contrast, "freed" subjects by offering more independent disposition over labor and produce as well as increased political power" (quotes by Blickle). 48 Although the process as a whole encouraged the formation of democratic regimes by nibbling bits and pieces from the feudal power, it was also a method to exclude persons who did not fit certain conditions. Setting conditions to be part of a group with certain rights as guilds did, and so did commoners- also means that some cannot belong to that group. Nor can we say that groups would function out of themselves, or that members of commons and guilds would be so altruistic that freeriding did not belong to their behavioural repertoire. Freedom is in this sense a very subjective term to use. There was a need for regulation (which often meant restriction), and for sanctioning, and sometimes exclusion; enthusiasm for communalism out of altruistic spirits would simply not do. It would be incorrect and naïve to give the impression that communalism went counter capitalism or even managed to slow down its progress. As will be suggested further on, many forms of collective action were closely related to typical capitalist phenomena, such as market development and wage labour. Whereas Blickle describes the rural form, others have pointed towards the urban variant. Robert Putnam suggested in his renowned "Making democracy work" in a short footnote that guilds might have made the difference in the construction of civil society in

17 17 Northern Italy. Avner Greif, in his newly published book "Institutions and the path to the modern economy: lessons from Medieval trade, stresses the importance of the Late Medieval rise of European institutions, whereby his interest goes primarily to guilds. He sees plenty of similarities between a variety of institutions that arose during that period and in the early modern period: central to both [periods] are individualism; corporatism (including at the national level), particularly in the form of non-kin corporations; manmade formal law; self-governance; and institutionalized processes for setting rules (in which those subject to them have a voice and influence). 49 Perceptions of the functions of guilds can however differ. Greif describes how "the merchant guild, initially a welfareenhancing institution that protected property rights, began to use its abilities to reduce welfare by preventing competition". On the basis of which he claims that "an institution can also undermine itself, even though a better alternative is not available, as the community responsibility system did in various parts of Europe". I believe that here he misses a vital point about the function of guilds, a point that Putnam in fact already suggested albeit indirectly- for the medieval craft guilds, namely the link between guilds and the formation of the civil society. By creating collective property rights on their common good, the guild merchants did aim at enhancing their welfare, but also and maybe even primarily- at securing a part of that welfare at the cost of loosing some to the common welfare of the group. Motives, motors and conditions for a silent revolution of corporate collective action Why do we find that many forms of corporate collective action in this period and in this area? There are several reasons why collective action could have been more advantages than private and public action in the medieval context. However, as it can be said from a Darwinian perspective, collective action should not be seen as a straightforward choice, it can be that there are motives to choose for it but the actual choice needs to be stimulated in order to be made. Without some specific circumstances the usefulness of collective action may remain obscured. In this paper I want to refer to these circumstances as motors and conditions. Motors are here elements of change that can led to collective action, such as population growth or market development. However, we do not know as such whether there aren t any other circumstances as these that would stimulate collective action to originate. What we do know on the basis of field researchis that there is another set of factors that is required before collective action can actually take place. Considering that we have described corporate action as an action that comes

18 18 from below, that is self-governed and rather autonomous, it should be clear that there needs to be space to let such initiatives develop. It is rather unlikely that collective action develops at full length in restricted circumstances. These circumstances are political the strength of the state-, societal the degree of openness in relationships, and legal the potential for legal recognition of corporate bodies. A. Motives for corporate collective action potential advantages What are the motives for a group of people with a common, though basically not yet collective, objective to choose for uniting forces and acting together as a response to a social dilemma? If there is potential for collective action, if the "right" circumstances are created what would then convince them that it is worth investing in a joint effort? What could be there motives? I explicitly not use the term causes but motives in relation to collective action, since I start from the premise that at least in theory there might have been other options to solve social dilemmas as well. I will discuss here the two most important and relevant motives for choosing for collective action: risk sharing and advantages of scale. Risk sharing by resource pooling Choosing for the cooperative answer has the advantage that one can share the possible costs that arise from uncertain or risky situations. In the case of commons, the risks reside as is also the case in some types of guilds, such as guilds that deal with construction works- in the dependency of (the availability of) the resources on nature. This is the case when the flow of natural resources is not continuous, for example due to seasonal variations: flooding, excessive rainfall, can seriously hamper the availability of resources but this cannot be foreseen. Pooling resources and the costs that are made to make these productive, made the use of such resources less risky. Each participant was certain of a part of the harvested resources, year after year, but this share was probably lower than the short-term profit that could have been obtained on an individual basis. In the same sense artisans were in medieval times facing risks, which they may try to limit via collective action. Guild members their main objective was also providing a minimal but secure income for its members. The capital "good" they pooled in order to prevent running great risks, was their skill: by combining their skills, and taking advantage of the scale of organisation (see next para) they could offer a uniform, high quality good, that would be sold at a minimum price. The "selling channels" and commercial knowledge the guild had build up over the years and that had been passed on could prove to be helpful hereby. Using those channels could reduce transaction costs. Those who were relatively highly skilled might have been able to get higher incomes than

19 19 what they obtained via the guild, but it was probably unlikely they would have done so over the long run. This collectivisation of human capital has been described for example the glassmakers of Venice: "The skills to make quality glass constituted a form of intellectual property. Knowledge was a valuable commodity. In the community of Murano, where practically everyone's livelihood depended on glassmaking to some degree, the knowledge associated with eh glass craft was "communal property". Failing to protect or maintain this property was to the detriment of the community, the guild and the Venetian state". 50 Advantages of scale Sticking together also offers the possibility that more is possible than on your own. If your resources are of low value, like it was the case with many commons, the costs of fencing the land in the form of individual patches would not have covered the possible uncertain- benefits. In those cases where a minimum surface of land is necessary to achieve efficiency, forming a collective is simply a necessity. Forming a collective then clearly offers advantages of scale. The same goes for guilds: they could achieve advantages of scale not only in buying raw materials in group but also in grouping their knowledge. Prak gives the example of guilds in 'shertogenbosch that let a representative buy goods in bulk at distant markets for a common account. In Medieval Venice, butchers let a member of the guild by a number of pigs and smiths bought their charcoal in common. 51 In Venice butchers bought their pigs together, smiths bought charcoal in bulk, and ceramists bought their white-lead etc. 52 Furthermore the combination of the limited resources of modest individuals, offered guilds the possibility to mobilize expensive legal aid. An example of this are the many petitions that were filed by guilds. This allowed the guilds to obtain specific privileges from the local authorities. 53 Epstein refers to advantages of scale for the use of knowledge: "Much premodern craft and engineering knowledge appears to have been shared or 'distributed' within industrial districts.sharing was more likely in ship- and edifice-building, mining and metalworking, and in the production of clocks and scientific instruments, which displayed strong division of labor and advanced levels of coordination and where cooperation provided clear economies of scale and scope sectors that are also notable for having played the most technologically innovative role in the Industrial Revolution. 54 Another incentive, though not economic, for the organisation in collective action, is the absence of other collectivities that generate sufficient trust to generate reciprocity to make a collective work. These can be family networks, or networks based on tribal organisations or clans. If costs and benefits can be shared among family members, there

20 20 might not be a need to look for fellow commoners or guilds, at least if the family network is sufficiently large to generate sufficient capital. The motives of medieval commoners and guild members to act collectively Several theories have been launched about the origins and the reasons of existence of guilds. 55 The origins of commons have however received comparatively little attention: most research on commons has focussed on the British enclosure movement and for the continental commons- on their final dissolution during the 18th-19th century. 56 The difficulty in finding the reasons for their existence lays in their multi-functionality and the shifts in the importance of those functions that these organisations have gone through: although most historians consider them as primarily focussed on economic goals, the importance, and in some periods even prevalence, of the social and charity character of guilds and commons cannot be ignored. In the past, mainly two explanations for the origins of commons have been given in literature. Elsewhere I have described these as the evolutionary explanation, and the causal explanation. 57 The evolutionary explanation considers the existence of commons as part of a long evolution towards private property, dating from Germanic times when only movables could become one s property, all non-movables belonged to the family/clan/tribe. 58 Common property could as claim Engels, Marx, De Laveleye and many other 19 th century authors, be seen as the primitive form of property. Over time, this common property would naturally evolve into private property. Clearly Marx and Engels did not favour this evolution, but others like De Laveleye stressed that this was an only natural evolution: "When jurists want to account for the origin of such a right, they fly to what they call the State of Nature, and from it derive directly absolute, individual ownership -or quiritary dominium. They thus ignore the law of gradual development, which is found throughout history, and contradict facts now well-known and well established. It is only after a series of progressive evolutions and at a comparatively recent period that individual ownership, as applied to land, is constituted. 59 In their views, all property would evolve into private property in the long run. Not only would this way of reasoning not explain the origins of commons in non- Germanic areas, it also contradicts with the establishment of new common rights upon large plots of lands during the Middle Ages or the foundation of many more commons in the period thereafter, when property systems had already evolved further. 60 According to for example Slicher van Bath 61 to mention only one eminent agricultural historian- the formation, of marken and meenten (both forms of wasteland commons) did not go further back than the 12 th of 13 th centuries, although the defenders of the "Germanic